


Can You Hear Them Talking

by Adel Mortescryche (Mortescryche)



Series: yoimafiaweek prompt fills [1]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Gangsters, Attempt at Humor, BAMF Katsuki Yuuri, Confident Katsuki Yuuri, Dark Victor Nikiforov, Day One, Dissociation, Friendship, Humor, Identity Reveal, Look both Victor and Yuuri are a little messed up in this one even if it isn't immediately obvious, M/M, Male-Female Friendship, Mild Language, Minor Violence, POV Outsider, Possessive Behavior, Possessive Victor Nikiforov, Russian Mafia, Senpai-Kouhai Relationship, World Champion Katsuki Yuuri, prompt: loyalty, yoimafiaweek
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-12
Updated: 2017-09-12
Packaged: 2018-12-27 05:28:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,248
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12074421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mortescryche/pseuds/Adel%20Mortescryche
Summary: In which Yuuri's rinkmates are very curious about the strange, intense and oddly familiar man who appeared out of nowhere only to start showing up at each and every one of Yuuri's training sessions. Phichit steps in to lay down the rules. Their curiosity isn't quenched in the slightest.(or: that one in which Victor Nikiforov disappeared at age 17 to join theBratvadue to family reasons. Yuuri never forgets about him, runs into him over a decade later, and convinces Victor to leave Russia with him.)





	Can You Hear Them Talking

**Author's Note:**

> No real trigger warnings for this, since it's a POV Outsider! Aside from the few in the tags. You've got to feel sorry for Yuuri's rinkmates, though.

No one is quite sure who the tall, pale haired man who comes to watch Yuuri practice every day is.

There’s been gossip through the locker rooms, whenever they’re sure Yuuri and Phichit aren’t around. Or, at least, when they’re sure _Yuuri_ isn’t around - there’s not much that gets past Phichit. They aren’t blind, and the way the man watches Yuuri is enough of a sign that there’s   _something_ going on there, though. So there are the usual accusations, that he’s a boyfriend, possibly an admirer that Yuuri can’t seem to shake. Someone brings up the possibility of him being a stalker, but they collectively let the thought go, because not only is the man too attractive to want to accuse of stalking… They know Phichit well enough to know that their rinkmate would never let something like that slide. No matter how attractive the stalker might be.

Look, they just know to avoid setting Phichit off, alright. Nothing’s worth that. Not even the sliver of a chance that Katsuki Yuuri will give them the time of day.

But then, someone brings up the   _other_ strange thing. That the man… Looks uncomfortably familiar. The way old actors look strangely familiar, or running into a friend you haven’t seen since kindergarten seems familiar. The cut off the man’s face sets something tumbling inside their heads, but none of them is certain about what it could be.

There is also the fact that, for all that he he seems stunned whenever he watches Yuuri skate, and turns exuberant whenever Yuuri waves at him from the boards, there’s something… Unnervingly intense about him. He shows up in the kind of bespoke suits that most of them wouldn’t be able to afford even with the right kind of sponsors or prizes after medaling, drives a frighteningly expensive car, carries himself with the careless confidence of someone who knows just how much he’s worth.

And for all that they’re curious… They have enough self preservative instincts to know when not to pry too deeply.

The pledge to not pry deeper lasts only until someone actually manages to figure out who the man is, though.

Phichit, when he walks in on the lot of them crowding over each other to stare at a tiny phone screen, makes a soft sound. They collectively squeak and fall over, packed too close to do anything else

“That was fast,” he said, smiling faintly.

They glance at each other through the corners of their eyes, and silently agree that they’ve never seen his smiles look quite that menacing before

“He’s… That’s Victor Nikiforov. Isn’t it.” Mike manages to get out, and the rest of them have no clue where the courage to speak up is coming from, but they wait with bated breath to see what the answer will be, anyway.

Because they know. They already know. There aren’t many skaters who aren’t familiar with Nikiforov’s last skate before he disappeared. Record breaking, back then, a sure sign that he would blaze through the seniors in his first season. If he hadn’t disappeared right after Junior Worlds, anyway.

Phichit sighed, and ran a hand through his hair. His expression was someplace between resigned and irate.

“I did tell them you lot would figure it out. This isn’t on me,” he declared, sounding exasperated.

“Of course not,” said An, a delicate smile tugging at the edges of her lips. “Now, you were saying?”

Phichit shot her a tight smile, ruffled his hair again, then waved at them to sit down. Which they did, each finding a place to settle their tushes, on benches, the ground, a rinkmate’s lap, etcetera. And they then proceeded to stare up at him eagerly.

“First things first,” Phichit said, voice no-nonsense, “you don’t get to talk about this. Or post about it. _I’m_ not posting anything about it. What does this tell you?”

They each stiffened, and shared uneasy glances. Because, that? That told them a whole lot. More than you’d think, but then, this was _Phichit._ He’d probably be queuing posts to be sent out from his death bed.

“We’re at an accord, then, are we. Good. Moving on!”

Jane jumped when his voice abruptly went louder. As did a few others. Phichit gave a bright, nearly sparkly grin, and dropped down on his haunches to crouch casually in front of them, elbows on his knees.

“Second, you do not approach Victor. You do not attempt to make friendly conversation. You do not bring Yuuri up in conversation, especially not any puppy love crushes you’ve had on him in the last few year. You do not ask Victor _anything.”_

“Oh, come on. What is this, Fight Club?” Chad piped up, irate. And shut up right after, when Phichit shot him a hard look.

“If that’s how we’re going with it, sure. We all know how _that_ ended, right.” Phichit’s tone was absolutely lethal, this time around. They stayed still, and tried not to attract his attention.

There were times when they’d wondered if Phichit was some strange eldritch abomination returned to earth from beyond the boundaries of space-time, and sticking around because Instagram and Tumblr were a barrel of laughs. And because he’d taken Katsuki Yuuri under his wing. None of them was tempted to test the possibility of it actually being true.

“…as I was saying. You will _not_ approach Victor Nikiforov. If you _do_ have anything to ask, you will ask either me, or Yuuri, but I’d have to say to avoid asking Yuuri about anything only when Victor isn’t around to see it happen. For your own sake. Thirdly,” he continued, ignoring the bug eyed stares he was starting to draw from them, “don’t tell Celestino or any of the other coaches _anything_ about Victor. Okay? I don’t think he’s noticed what’s going on yet, and it’s in our best interest to keep it that way.”

They remained silent, watching him watching them, the dark look on his face having been traded in for something blandly pleasant. Miya, the only one amongst them who was vaguely close to something like a friend of the Thai skater, cleared her throat, shrugging awkwardly when he glanced at her.

“Nothing else? That’s it?” she asked hopefully.

Phichit frowned in thought, then glanced up with a beaming smile.

“Actually no. There’s another one. If you ever hear a car backfiring, or if Victor actually goes out of his way to tell you to run, listen to him.”

They stared at him, bemused. Phichit stared back, his smile still locked in place.

Mike sighed, finally, and slowly pushed himself up off of the bench.

“Okay, then. We won’t do any of the things you told us not to do. But won’t it be obvious, if we go out of our way to avoid them? Yuuri’s going to notice something.”

Phichit rolled his eyes, easily pushing himself back to his feet.

“Nah. Yuuri isn’t going to notice anything outside of Victor for a while. And Victor’ll figure out I had something to do with. He knows I’m more discreet than Yuuri is.”

_That?_ Makes all of them pause, even in the process of getting up. Phichit shoots them a cheery little grin that _has_ to be hiding a smirk, before abruptly whirling about, throwing his arms through Mike and Josh’s and dragging the girls closer. The go with it, smiling and posing automatically. Multiple years with Phichit Chulanont inures one to selfies, after all.

It’s only after he’s bounced out of the locker room, gleefully tapping away at his phone screen, that the lot of them peek at each other again.

“…well?” An asked, voice bland.

“We should probably warn the others, yeah?” Derek said, and they all nodded back. They hadn’t all been together, after all, when Jane suggested going back to Victor Nikiforov’s old skate videos, just to be sure if they were on the right track.

“You sure we shouldn’t just let Phichit lay the rules down on the rest of them?” Chad bit out, and waved the hands that raised to swat him on the shoulders and upside the head immediately.

“And risk that he expected _us_ to do the dirty work? Hell no, boy, we’re passing the word on. And if he’s got issues with that we’ll face up against him and defend ourselves.” Zoe growled, and earned herself an outpouring of low-key cheers and nods. And one shrug from Chad, but he knew to give in when he was outnumbered.

They dispersed from the locker room with quiet promises to pass on the word ASAP. Outside of training hours, hopefully, so there was no chance of work getting back to Nikiforov. Phichit was another matter, but… Yeah. They’d pass the news on,

*

“You _did_ register that Phichit said _backfires_ right?” Raj hissed at them a few days later. Jane and Zoe, who’d been closest, squeaked in surprise. Mike peered around at him warily, along with Jo, who hadn’t actually been there when Phichit laid down the rules.

“Yeah? So what?”

Raj rolled his eyes, and got his index and middle fingers together, curling the others back and lifting his thumb up in an obvious trigger.

“Bang Bang Ka- _Pow,_ man. Come on.”

“ _Gunshots?_ Are you fucking serious?” Zoe said incredulously, elbowing Jane impatiently when she tried to shush her.

Raj raised a pair of particularly defined brows at her.

“I think so, yes. That’s what they say gunshots sound like, right.”

“Dunno. I haven’t actually shot a gun before.”

“Well, I have, and I think it might? Sometimes?” Jane cut in, looking thoughtful.

They were silent for a long moment, trading uneasy glances.

“….no way, man,” Mike mumbled.

“Yes way,” Raj corrected, and sighed, sounding far too exhausted for a day of training that hadn’t even begun yet.

They hurriedly got back to getting ready when Yuuri stepped in, followed closely by Phichit, a wave of ‘Hi, hello, how are yous’ pouring out in an easy rush.

*

Whether or not Phichit had told them to listen to Nikiforov in the event of gunshots being fired, even keeping a subtle watch on him and Yuuri didn’t really give them any more hints. For one, Nikiforov always showed up in that large tan trench coat of his, Burberry obviously, which hid just about anything he could have been carrying on his person. For another, even if the silence around him seemed to sizzle with untold possibilities… he really did just seem to be showing up to watch Yuuri skate.

After a certain point, it actually felt awkward to keep watching them. Especially when, at some point, Phichit seemed to have let Celestino into the loop, meaning Victor actually got to head down to the boards and watch Yuuri from up close. They didn’t think they’d seen such a sappy set of boyfriends before. If Victor wasn’t leaning against the boards, chin resting on his palm and sighing over Yuuri’s triple axels and quadruple flips, he was busy gathering their rinkmate close for sweet nothings whispered low into his ear. And while those nothings might have been anything but sweet, judging by the way they had Yuuri catching Victor by the tie and jerking him closer before Celestino yelled at him to get back to skating, they certainly didn’t seem to point at anything outside of Yuuri apparently having a _very_ healthy sex life.

Which was bad enough, honestly. They knew that they couldn’t exactly measure up to _Nikiforov,_ of all people, not in the eyes of the world’s number one leading Victor Nikiforov fan, but guys and girls could dream, right?

Phichit cackled at them under his breath when he stepped up to the benches to drink some water.

*

When they actually got proof of Victor _carrying_ , and apparently doing so every damned day that they’d seen him at the rink, it wasn’t anything big. Just some dude showing up late at night, when there hadn’t been anyone left at the rink except for Yuuri and Miya, who’d both stayed in late because they’d been dissatisfied with how their training for their Nationals had been going. And Miya might have been a whole lot younger than Yuuri, but that didn’t stop her from wanting to get all the pointers she could get from her senior. _Especially_ since he was on the verge of retiring.

They all knew that it was close. Yuuri was all but ancient, in skating years, and he’d been ranking world champion for long enough that they could all tell he was satisfied. Nikiforov showing up had only cemented something they’d been expecting for two seasons now.

Back to the stranger that had interrupted their training time, though. Miya didn’t get more than a split second glance to see the gun that was being leveled at them from the boards when Yuuri was bundling her down to the ice, covering her with his own body.

“ _Senpai!”_ she yelped, horrified, trying to get her head up from where he’d tucked it under his chin.

He didn’t let her budge an inch, and anyway, there weren’t any shots fired. When they both cautiously peered upwards, around the opening through the boards, it was to find Nikiforov pinning the man down, his lips pulled back in a snarl, and with a gun pressed up against the base of the other man’s head.

The expression was animalistic enough that Miya’s breath got caught in her throat, nearly choking her.

“ _Vitya.”_ Yuuri called out, voice sharp in a way she’d never quite heard before.

The word, the diminutive, seems to work, because Nikiforov’s face blanks immediately, going back to the polite disinterest he tends to have about him any time they’ve seen him when Yuuri’s too busy to look back or pay attention to him. The abrupt change chills her about as much as his savage anger had a moment earlier.

“Miya,” Yuuri murmured, _sotto voce,_ and she hesitantly got back to her feet, barely needing the lightly guiding fingers on her elbow to regain balance. Even with the shock coursing through her. They skate the short distance to the opening and step out, automatically shaking off the ice clinging to their blades. The exercise is mundane, something she does often enough that it barely registers over the fact that her rinkmate’s boyfriend is currently pinning down someone who’d tried to attack them, and had a gun pointed at their attacker’s head.

Yuuri barely seems fazed, though. If anything, his expression is about as distantly interested as Nikiforov’s.

“That’s the third one this week, isn’t it?” he asked casually as he stepped forward, reaching down to run his fingertips through the short hair at the nape of Nikiforov’s neck.

The words make Miya stiffen up in horror, _again,_ but Nikiforov doesn’t even react, instead tilting his head into Yuuri’s gently combing fingers. The man on the floor snarls something in a guttural language that takes Miya a moment to place as Russian, before abruptly falling silent. Understandably, though, because the sound of Nikiforov clicking off the safety on his gun had been audible in spite of the man’s loud words.

Yuuri _smiled,_ and that’s the point at which Miya thinks she really should be getting the fuck out of there. Because, for all that she knew she could trust Yuuri-senpai with her life, she really didn’t want to be witness to a murder on the side of a rink she had to train in for the next few years. If her contract with Celestino held out, anyway.

“You,” said a low, cold voice that she needed another moment to recognize as _Nikiforov’s,_ “will return to St. Petersburg. You will tell Sergei that I am _not interested._ And that if he sends any more of his dogs after my Yuuri again-”

“Hush, love,” Yuuri murmured, and Nikiforov fell silent again.

“He,” spat the heavily accented voice of the man on the floor, “has you chained like a _pet._ How the mighty have fallen.”

“Nothing personal,” Yuuri said, the fondness in his voice from earlier drying out abruptly, “but I think you really should be leaving now.”

Miya’s hands fisted tight against the material of her training sweats, having been sticking as close to the boards and away from the altercation taking place before her as she could get. She almost thought that Nikiforov wouldn’t stand up, but no, there he was, gracefully getting back to his feet. He _didn’t_ click the safety back in place, though. And his eyes might well have been a pair of windows overlooking an abyss for how much emotion was in them, while he watched the stranger get back to his feet.

The man looked mulish, and angry, but he left his gun, _guns_ , and a few concealed knives behind at Yuuri’s quiet urging, all while Nikiforov watched him, all but waiting for him to screw up in some way. The sheer patience lining every bit of his frame left Miya chilled to the bone.

“Pleasure meeting you. Our love to Anton,” Yuuri said, when he was done. The words drew a dark look of frighteningly focused hatred across the man’s face, but he backed off without a word when Nikiforov silently raised the gun in his grasp.

The three of them stayed locked in place until the man disappeared out the exit.

When he was gone, Miya collapsed to the floor on her knees, shaking. Yuuri jerked around in surprise at the sound, and quickly hurried forward to rub her back comfortingly. Miya allowed herself to sink into the comfort of being cared for by a senior rinkmate, but even Yuuri’s comforting presence and softly murmured words couldn’t stop her from watching the way Nikiforov casually clicked his gun’s safety back in place, getting it reholstered in place within his trench coat.

“We’re so sorry, Miya-chan,” Yuuri was saying, and she cut him off with a tired laugh.

“No you’re not. Thank you, Nikiforov-san.”

Nikiforov blinked slowly at her, bemused, but he _did_ nod, easily accepting the thanks for what it was. Yuuri looked almost adorably confused, but really, that wasn’t surprising.

Miya was just relieved that, even if Yuuri-senpai’s tastes let him forgive Nikiforov’s suspicious past, at the very least he’d picked someone who would ensure that he would stay safe. That, and there was no way in hell Phichit would have tried to protect Nikiforov from them and the media if he didn’t think the older man was good for Yuuri-senpai.

“Here, I think we’re done for the night. Let’s both cool down, and Victor and I will drive you back home. Okay?”

“Okay,” she agreed, and allowed herself to be gathered up into a hug.

*

“Russian yakuza?” Jane repeated bemusedly the next day.

“You mean the Russian Mafia,” Zoe corrected snidely.

“ _Bratva,_ guys,” Raj corrected, voice muffled, on the other side of the lockers from them.

“A gun? For fucking serious?” Chad asked incredulously. “And, what, a _bounty hunter?_ Jesus fucking Christ.”

“Quieten down, guys, before you manage to give Celestino a heart attack,” Phichit said cheerfully, tone final, striding past them at an easy lope with his nose buried in his phone.

And Yuuri followed right after, which was enough of a reason to shut up and get back to getting changed.

Training and making sure their coach stayed in good health was at least a little bit more important than their famous world champion rinkmate and his gun toting mafia boyfriend, at any rate.

**Author's Note:**

>  **AN:** Whoa, it's been a while. *awkward grin* Anyone who's stopping by here looking for updates on my other stuff - there's an update ready and waiting for my SAO xover with YOI, _A Heart of Blades_. The only reason it's not already up is because I'm still trying to get up-to-date with responding to all the beautiful comments over there. That said, yes, this _is_ the day one fill to the YOI Mafia Week event being run on Tumblr. 
> 
> This is a part of a larger Mafia AU idea I'm still working with, mind you. Not sure when I'll get the chance to complete and post that, but you have the information now.
> 
> **Status update:** I now have a Tumblr account and am gradually attempting to get back into the flow of writing after a few really messy months. I've already got the fills for days two and three up over there, feel free to stop by and flail with me over YOI and/or KHR, other stuff, or check out the other fills if you like this one! [Just click here](https://adelmortescryche.tumblr.com/).
> 
> If you enjoyed this, remember that **kudos and comments are very welcome!** I'm always up to chat about YOI ridiculousness, specifically Victuuri ridiculousness, or even about how scary Phichit can be to the unwary. Mafia AUs are so much _fun_.


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